Project Leadership

Missiles The Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Program (JASSM) will settle on a contractor for the missile within six months. The JASSM program will be a significant contributor to our national defense. The development and acquisition process for JASSM will be a model for other future programs to follow in terms of its efficiency and its effectiveness.

There will be a high level of communication throughout this process, and the workers on the project will feel empowered to work together to bring this project in within six months, with the missiles on spec and below the target per unit cost. Terry Little's interactions fostered higher levels of performance. The first interaction that he undertook was when he joined the program. He immediately shifted the program into a higher gear, bringing people back from vacation early and focusing them on an objective before even introducing himself.

This set the tone for the interaction -- that interactions within the unit would be focused entirely on meeting this objective. From there, Terry's one-on-one interactions were based on fostering a high level of communication and respect. If bureaucracy and poor communication flow had been holding the project back, Terry made sure that those things had nothing to do with the interactions he was initiating.

Instead, he instituted regular meetings with small groups, individual meetings with suppliers, and he was blunt and honest with the workers on the team, something that maybe had not happened before. There were many workers, however, who were well aware that the project had been spinning its wheels and who therefore invited a more open and results-oriented style of interaction. Terry's style was focused on getting the attention of the team, and in that respect he allowed his reputation to work for him.

The people in the unit knew of his reputation for firing people, but Terry did demonstrate inconsistency there, with respect to allowing women more slack. This is not an approach I would have taken. While Terry otherwise did a very good job, his handling of the issue with the female supervisor who was constantly AWOL was not a good sign and probably hurt the team morale.

His working with the chain smoker, however, probably showed that he could work with anybody, and was willing to do whatever it took to get the project solved. This is something that boosts morale and encourages others who might otherwise similarly feel underutilized within the organization. Overall, the JASSM project was highly successful. Because of that, it is difficult to argue with the leadership job that Terry Little did. I would have taken a similar approach. He trusted his people, and allowed them to get the job done.

This was something that empowered the team. Further, his approach of making the entire focus of the change to get the project completed within six months was exactly what the team needed. There likely would have been temptation for the team to think of the new leader as being the most important thing, so it was symbolic that he immediately launched into the six-month target before introducing himself.

Further, his bringing people back early from vacation was symbolic of the urgency that was felt -- so this his approach was very good. He kept the focus on the target and empowered the team to reach the target. The only real issue and thing I would do differently was that I would fire the AWOL female supervisor -- that kind of nonsense cannot be tolerated. 3. Terry Little was able to succeed because he tackled some of the fallacies.

It is not known if he introduced one in setting the six-month deadline, but the team believed it so that was effective if it wasn't true. More important was his ability to tackle some of the long-held beliefs about how such projects should work. The way that he communicated regularly and individually with the suppliers, for example, was a rejection of conventional wisdom of the DoD, but not of private business.

It is not strictly a fallacy that government practice is inherently less effective, but Little was able to tackle such fallacies where they existed. I found Little's style to be consistent, except for the AWOL female supervisor thing. In general, his approach is to focus on the objective and get the whole team focused on that objective. He created a high level of motivation for the team and empowered people who had previously been doing very little to bring this project in on time and under budget.

I would personally eliminate such inconsistencies. But overall, I am a results-oriented manager and so any manager that delivers those kinds of results from a project that looked dead in the water is a manager whose style I am not apt to question too deeply. He even carried this strategy into the project after Lockheed won the contract, by having open communication and working with the supplier to ensure that the project continued to be the result of a collaborative effort.

Lockheed had succeeded in part because it understood and was attentive to the needs of the JASSM team. This was important, because communication flow is something that is a big part of Little's efforts. As noted above, I would not have changed much about Little's approach. I like his approach, and the results speak for themselves. 4. Improving on award-winning performance is not easy. Let's start with the start. The first recommendation is that all employees are treated equally, not given special treatment because of their gender.

There were EEOC violations in there, as well as morale and performance issues. Beyond that, there are two other recommendations that are offered. Of these, it is recommended that benchmarks are recorded. The team was highly.